Goodman Games: Our Efforts Have Been Mischaracterized

Goodman Games' CEO Joseph Goodman made a statement via YouTube over the weekend*. The video itself focused on the content of the controversial upcoming City State of the Invincible Overlord crowdfunding product, but was prefaced by a short introduction by Joseph Goodman, in which he reiterates his company's commitment to inclusivity and diversity and its opposition to bigotry, something which they say they "don't want to be associated with".

Goodman goes on to say that the company's efforts have been "mischaracterized by some folks" but does not go so far as to identify the mischaracterization, so it's not entirely clear what they consider to be untrue other than the "inaccurate" statements made by Bob Bledsaw II of Judges Guild about Goodman Games' plans, which Goodman mentioned last week.

For those who haven't been following this story, it has been covered in the articles Goodman Games Revives Relationship With Anti-Semitic Publisher For New City State Kickstarter, Goodman Games Offers Assurances About Judges Guild Royalties, and Judges Guild Makes Statement About Goodman Controversy. In short, Goodman Games is currently licensing an old property from a company with which it claimed to have cut ties in 2020 after the owner of that company made a number of bigoted comments on social media. Goodman Games has repeatedly said that this move would allow them to provide backers of an old unfulfilled Judges Guild Kickstarter with refunds, but there are many people questioning seeming contradictions in both the timelines involved and in the appropriateness of the whole endeavour.

Despite the backlash, the prospects of the crowdfunding project do not seem to have been harmed. The pre-launch page has over 3,000 followers, and many of the comments under the YouTube videos or on other social media are not only very supportive of the project, but also condemn those who question its appropriateness. In comparison, the original (failed) Judges Guild Kickstarter had only 965 backers.

The video is embedded below, followed by a transcript of the relevant section.

Hi everybody, I'm Joseph Goodman of Goodman Games. We recently announced our City State of the Invincible Overlord crowdfunding project for 5E and DCC RPG.

In the video you're about to see, some of our product development team is going to tell you about what makes the City State so amazing and why we're bringing it back to 5E and DCC audiences nearly 50 years after it was first released. It really is an amazing setting.

But we could have rolled this project out with a lot more clarity. Now, to be clear, Goodman Games absolutely opposes any sort of bigotry, racism, anti-semitism, homophobia, transphobia. We don't want to support it. We don't want to be associated with it.

Our well-intentioned effort to launch this project in a way that refunds backers of a former failed Kickstarter from another publisher kind of backfired in the way we announced it. Rest assured, the funds from this crowdfunding will actually fund refunds to backers of the original City State crowdfunding for the Pathfinder edition from 2014.

Unfortunately, our efforts have been—you know, I didn’t clarify them perfectly when we rolled it out—and they've been mischaracterized by some folks since then. But please rest assured, we stand for inclusivity and diversity.

You can read a lot more detail in the post that's linked below, and there's another video linked below where we talk about this in even more detail. But for now, we hope you will sit back and enjoy as some of the product development team tells you about really what makes the City State of the Invincible Overlord so amazing, and why you might want to check it out when it comes to crowdfunding soon.

Thanks, and I'll turn it over to them now.

The statement refers to a post about this that is supposed to be linked below, but at the time of writing no post is linked below the video, so it's not clear if that refers to a new post or one of Goodman Games' previous statements on the issue.

I reached out to Joseph Goodman last week to offer a non-confrontational (although direct and candid) interview in which he could answer some ongoing questions and talk on his reasoning behind the decision; I have not yet received a response to the offer--I did, however, indicate that I was just leaving for UK Games Expo, and wouldn't be back until this week.

*Normally I would have covered this in a more timely fashion, but I was away at UK Games Expo from Thursday through to Monday.

 

[Kannik]

And it can sometimes be very difficult to separate stop-gap measures for valid concerns from racially motivated problems. Arguably, there are times when there really isn't much separation at all.

Worth highlighting. While there may be some concern or even reasons for caution, and there may be some some logic to them, they often get leveraged (often in overblown ways) as a cover for the actual discriminatory reasons. An 'a priori' kind of reasoning: "We want X, now what can we find to at least thinly justify it?"

Confounding it is that equally often it may arise from hidden bias. We're swimming in this soup of biased views and thinking, and while we may not think about it ourselves (nor examine it -- which is the crux of hidden biases) we have this general either malaise or positivity towards certain things that strongly inclines us away/towards it, which then leads us towards those a priori reasonings.

It's still very much bias, and it still very much has discriminatory outcomes, whether we intended those outcomes or not. We all have biases, it comes with being human. Thinking we don't is the bigger issue, as it blinds us to and gives more power to the ones we have.

And, for certain, sometimes "there isn't really much separation at all" and there is no hidden part to the bias there. It is very much being deliberately employed to achieve their actively bigoted ways.

 

[Argyle King]

I understand that there are people who believe power is required to be "racist." I had a few college professors who pushed that idea. While, I understand that is a point of view, I'm not sure how it is logical.

I am inclined to believe that Nazi idealogy was racist. I do not believe that the Nazis who fled to South America (after WW2) were no longer racist due to being out of power and living in an area where they were then the minority.

Also, how does that apply to someone of mixed heritage? Hypothetically, would members of my family be limited to a certain percentage of racism?

Anyway....

Regarding OSR.

Personally, I still feel that the overall track record of Goodman Games is predominantly positive.

There certainly are people who have turned me away from OSR products though. After the OSR discussion I had in the OSR forum about OSE, OSRIC, and what they're compatible with; I went down a rabbit hole of trying to find other game products that I might buy to use. There were a few that seemed cool until I learned more about the companies making them. Even as someone who tends to have a thick skin and not be easily offended, I found that some OSR companies pushed way beyond what I was comfortable with.

Then, of course, that prompts me to evaluate whether or not I should still buy WotC products. (Not OSR, but a company that sometimes behaves in a way that I don't support.) Right now, it's easy to not support WotC because they aren't making products that I want. If that changes in the future, I'll need to weigh that based upon circumstances and products of that time.

Lastly, I think about this: On the opposite end of the spectrum from scummy companies... does it matter how ethical someone is if they're making products that suck?

 

[Parmandur]

Again, not buying what Ibram X. Kendi is selling. What’s being described is hard coding racism into policies, not defining racism itself.

If we treated this sentence

more like a math equation, where “racism” is defined as “racial bigotry + a power imbalance” we’d have something like R = R(policies) + R(ideas); IOW:


Add in the fact that other bigotries have also benefitted from being codified into company, cultural and legal policies, and it’s all a nonsensical mess, IMHO.

I do not agree with Kendi across the board myself, but I find the separation out of racist ideas very helpful. Anyone can have racist ideas, and they are always bad and should be addressed, but the racist ideas of the rich and powerful are generally mrle dangerous. I do not read Kendi's analysis as saying anyone cannot hold racist ideas, but rather that they are a complex idealogical soup.

 

[cbwjm]

I understand that there are people who believe power is required to be "racist." I had a few college professors who pushed that idea. While, I understand that is a point of view, I'm not sure how it is logical.

I agree; I think this is why people talk about systemic racism. You can be racist and have power, and racist and have no power, but the former can actively prevent the target of their racism from advancement using systems in their control.

As a couple of examples here in NZ I've heard (I think this was a news article) that some company's hiring practice is to first weed out anyone with a Maori name and just bin their CV.

One time I was walking to work and some Maori dude lovingly whispered in my ear "white trash" as he passed me by. It was hilarious, I told all my friends and we had a good laugh about it.

Both of the above are racist, but only one is really oppressive.